It is almost oppressive silence as the SWAT Team goes deeper into the ghost town, the fog swirling and sticking to any figure. Chill air carries a faint scent of decay and mildew, mingled with the unmistakable smell of dust and rust. Every house they pass was a silent story of abandonment: a general store that was once very active, with signs that were now faded and peeling, racks of goods still lined up and filled with cans that had started to rust; a tiny post office where letters were scattered all over the floor, some caught in spider webs which hung dry from the counters. An obvious sign of inactivity.
They moved with caution; every man gripped his rifle as if an instant reaction to some imminent danger. Moving in tight formations, each watching angles, with their backs covered by the others. A faint crackling in their earpieces was the only link they had to the command station, but it seemed tonight that static was a bit louder, hissing through the channels in uneven bursts. Sometimes, it sounds like whispers, those of the dead.
Flashlights cut through the fog, illuminating shapes that blur and distort, which sometimes fleetingly take on the impression of faces or figures before just dissipating. They draw up to an old saloon and halt, the leader raising his closed fist. One member heads forward, being careful to pull the creaking door open with the muzzle of his rifle. Inside, tables and chairs are strewn about, overturned, with a long, dust-covered bar running down the middle, littered with bottles whose glass showed a milky white from a long time of grime accumulation. There's a tattered piano against the wall; one key is depressed as if someone had only just left.
The team steps inside; boots crunch on broken glass and debris, and each sounds like a gunshot in the vacant town. The room is cleared in near silence; the cold makes their breaths visible just a little. As they are about to proceed onward, some faint noise- a distant sigh or low moan- emanates from upstairs. All freeze, guns pointed upwards, muscles tensed in anticipation. The radio crackles once more indistinct voice made out through the static, like someone or something is trying to communicate.
One officer's temple begins to trickle sweat as they wait in absolute silence now, save for the sound of their heartbeat. A tense moment later, the leader gives a hand signal to ascend the staircase for a team of two. Each of their steps creaks through the flight, sounds magnified by the emptiness of the building. Dust motes dance in their flashlight beams, swirling like specters in the air.
They reach the top; a narrow hall greets them with several doors, all slightly ajar, as if whatever was here once left in haste. They clear each room, eyes scanning every corner until they reach the last door at the far end of the hall. The air is thicker here, almost stifling, an icy draft whispering its way through the narrow space. They push the door open slowly, and inside stands a small room with one chair in the center. On it sits an old, weathered doll, with its head tilted to the side, eyes staring blankly ahead.
One steps in closer, playing the flashlight over the doll, when a sudden whistling breeze through the broken window stirs the doll's head. The team readies themselves, guns raised, the tense moment held in a heavy quiet ghost town watching them. Waiting for one wrong move to swallow them whole.
They continued further up the mountain, the weight on their shoes getting heavier and heavier. The fog grows thicker and thicker to the point that the soldiers can taste the moisture held within the grey seemingly lackluster fog.
The team freezes just outside the sprawling building, bunched up close in the pale, cold light of the moon. Their faces are partly covered with tactical masks, but even through the shadows, tension in their eyes is unmistakable. Their breaths plume short and visible in the frigid mountain air, almost swallowed by an eerie stillness that blankets the abandoned house.
The fog clings to them as they reconnoiter the perimeter. Every shattered window, every cracked stone seems to stare at them like a thousand eyes watching their every move. The team leader raises his hand to stop them. Instinctively, each tightened his grip on his rifle, squaring his shoulders as if to steel himself against some unseen weight pressing down from the silent, watchful mountain.
To the right, a twisted old tree protrudes, its gnarled branches reaching toward the house, almost as if pointing them inside. The once-grand front door stands ominously ajar, its heavy wood darkened by age and streaked with dirt and neglect, hanging crooked on its rusted hinges. A little ways off from this is the skeletal frame of some old, rusted swing set, gently swaying in the night breeze, the faint, creaking sound cutting through the stillness.
A flicker of light from an upper window, or perhaps the trick of their lights reflecting back off the shattered glass. Nobody says a word, but the stillness around them tightens further, packing in harder where the words might have been. The only thing that breaks this is the intermittent crackle of static from their radios, distorting noises into the creak of the wind around them. As they share a final glance, they both seem to acknowledge the same shared feeling—that whatever was waiting inside would be beyond anything they had faced before. Raising his hand in a signal to move forward, he takes the last few steps toward the entrance, and they leave the consolation of the outside world behind them. Fully prepared to enter the eerie house and complete their mission once and for all.